So I put up this seasons transfer exits list and it sparked much debate in the comments and on the wider web. People seem to be transfixed by this issue of salary and price. Now, in some instances I agree. We do pay our drossy players too much. Diaby earns £60k a week. Really though, he’s not a drossy player… he’s an injury prone one. He’s a French international, he’s got quite a lot of ability and he looks like Vieira. If he wasn’t injury prone, he’d get a deal.

Other players on my list people gasped at…

Nik B:

Has goal scoring pedigree in the Premiership

Danish player of the year most years

International footballer / Goal scorer at that level as well

Champions League experience

Suited to the Premiership

Married a Princess

Please don’t tell me £6mill and £52k a week is unattainable elsewhere in the league.

Carlos Vela:

Scorer of classy chipped goals

Has bundles of pace

Has superb technique

Mexican international

Has bagged 12 goals and 7 assists in a very poor side in Spain

World class party arranger

Again, please don’t tell me £8million for this sort of player is beyond the realms of belief.

Chamakh:

Previous top scorer of headers in the worlds premier club competition

League winner with Bordeaux and one of their best players at the time

Great build for Premier League

Supreme 3 yard passing ability

Previously rated at £15million

You’re telling me he couldn’t fetch £5million on the open market?

As for Alex Song for £25million. Please. How are you even questioning his proposed price at £25million. He’s been floating in all those Youtube friendly assists to Robin all year, he never gets injured and Madrid are interesting him. Do I even need to run you through their purchases? £20million for Lassana Diarra who managed 17 games this year. So good, Chelsea had him as a right back and sold him to us for a pittance. £30million for Mahamadou Diarra who came from a poorer league and now plays for Fulham. We should be looking for no less than that if we’re looking to sell. 12 assists people… that’s more than Luca Modric has managed in 2 season. Precisely 3x the amount his managed this year. He’s being touted for £35million+.

Wages could be a stumbling block for some mid range clubs, but so is playing for young players. If Everton can afford a player like Drenthe, then why can’t they afford someone like Bendtner? I think the whole wages thing is an issue, but for me, the prices we look for are more the problem. We’re looking for Adebayor type inflation with our poor players. People will take them, just for lower prices. At the end of the day, young, technically gifted players are sought after. We have them in abundance… just not at the level they need to be.

Other clubs seem to be able to shift on their poor players on high wages. Newcastle are a prime example of a club that took the hit on the fee to get rid of big earners. Joey Barton and Kevin Nolan all went to very poor clubs on wages similar to the above mentioned players.

Back to the Arsenal. The Yann M’Vila story is already beginning to bore me. Journalists, bloggers and students on Twitter with inside information from the top are arguing amongst themselves over whether there is a deal going on. Some say it’s being negotiated, others are saying it’s agent speak to get a better deal at Inter… I’m saying we’ve proabably been scared off by another club entering the battle.

We never negotiate if there is a second party involved.

If we don’t sign him, there will be someone else we have in mind. I’d be very surprised if Arsene is looking at our goals conceded this season thinking his back 4 have been superbly protected. 47 goals is quite a lot… even for Arsenal. We’ve also been tracking M’Vila for a long time. That’s a lot of wasted scouting if we give up at the first sign of a bidding war. If this guy is good enough, what’s £22million? He’s 21, he can do the job and he’ll have resale value. If he’s not good enough at £22million… why would he be good enough at £17million? He’s either going to be world class or he’s not. How much would you have paid for Gilberto back in the day?

The Arsenal team had an end of season party yesterday. Am I the only one who thinks that having an end of season party before the end of the season is a bit strange? Shouldn’t we finish the job then throw the farewells? You know… to avoid that feeling that the season is over when we’re playing WBA in a hugely important match?

Maybe I’m being a stick in the mud.

The players said goodbye to Pat Rice. They ate jelly and ice cream and some of the older boys went and played in the woods. No hangovers I hope. No office flings. I know how these events get… Pam I’m looking at you.

On the player exits list. Robin Van Persie has had the dreaded Peter Hill-Wood vote of confidence.

‘We haven’t talked to Robin yet, but I spoke to Arsene (Wenger) recently. He is very confident he will stay and I very much hope he will’

‘He has had a wonderful season with us. We have had no official approaches from any other club, as far as I am aware.’

Translated…

‘Robin won’t speak to us, Arsene is confident because that’s his default emotion when it comes to Arsenal players and their futures and though we’ve had no official approaches, we’re pretty sure Darren Dein has had about nine unofficial contacts.’

There is also no movement on the Theo Walcott situation. To be honest, if we replaced him with Hoilett we’d probably be upgrading anyway. Theo has managed 9 goals and 11 assists playing at a team in 3rd place with the hottest striker on the planet. Hoilett, in 10 less games for one of the worst sides in the league has managed 6 assists and 7 goals. If we land him on a free and sell Theo for £18million, we’d be doing a grand bit of player switchery.

That’s as much as I can give today. Fear not though, for tomorrow is another day.

I don’t believe we will sign him, I don’t believe we have ever talked to him. But some members of the press are bigging it up, and some fans through desperation are lapping it up.
I was taking the piss, maybe you should read all the posts instead of picking at random.

Remember Wenger said the Podolski deal had not been done and it was a done deal long before it was officially announced. He would not officially announce a deal has been done for a player on the eve of a vital game at the end of the season. In a position where we have many players. Wenger needs one last big performance this season and for the players not to lose focus.

This whole transfer speculation is getting boring, really. Like I’ve said before if we lower our expectations Wenger can’t disappoint you. Mines has already been exceeded by Podolski that’s how low they’ve been driven. Whatever happens happens. I’m just watching the clock wind down to Wenger leaving.

Nothing is going to change, Wenger needs to go for it to. just watched that ‘Hoarder next door’ programme and its the saem as Wenger.
He’s unable to see the clutter, distinguish between rubbish and what’s good. He needs someone else to do it. And i think we have the worst Exec in Europe in Gazidis, guy is a total lightweight and should never have been allowed near AFC. So in summary..we’re fucked until Wenger, Kroenke and Gazidis are gone

I’m not allowing myself to be sucked in. I’ve learned from the past. If we get rid of 1 its a bonus if we bring one in it’s a bonus if we don;’t sell our best player it’s Christmas. Yeah sad but when you are brow beaten over the years you tend to lose interest. Once the real plans are revealed I’ll feel better about knowing what position we’re in. At this moment we’re in the season ticket renewal lets spread rumours to generate interest and all that shit. I can do without it for now. Maybe I’m having an off day or there’s nothing new to challenge.

I was going to pull out the link that Thomas did after the comments about Bayern and Arsenal but he beat me to it. We did however discuss this a few evenings ago so again repetition. Lets see what tomorrows story brings.

Pedro.
Marcel van der Kraan has said it is a done deal. He is not a journo who deals in gossip and is pretty reliable, he says the deal is finalised and Vertonghen will be announced soon by Spurs.
He also reckons Van Persie will stay if the right signings are made, says he loves London and is Arsenal through and through.
So some good news.

Podolski lowering expectations and that’s how low they have gone? He is a top class German international with a goal scoring pedigree to match. If you ask any of our rivals would you want Podolski they would say yes. He is better then Young, Nani, Valencia, Nasri and Silva.

Pedro Pat Rice retired, bit different and yes we will see if Bould is ALLOWED to change anything or touch any of Wenger’s prescious designs.
Podolski in the bag. So was Gervinho early last year and we still sold Fabregas and Nasri and had the worst summer under Arsene Wenger ever that only ‘ended’ when we were thumped 8-2. If that loss had come a week later we’d have gone into the season with no Arteta and for the sake of £10 000 a week that deal almost fell through as well!
I just think someone needs to pull Arsene to one side and say ‘you do know this isn’t your club right? Like it doesn’t actually belong to you? And quite a few of the fans dislike you – quite a bit. They’re burning effigies of you Arsene in the car park and they’ve formed a Mongel cavalry. They’re encircling you’re C3 as we speak and are refusing to move until you remove the AFC cheque book from your anus.’
Someone needs to say that and exactly those words, no watering it down, I’ll bring the horses

Gunner2301.
Vand Der Kraan said they are very similar players, he gives it to Vertoghnen on the basis that he is a more disciplined and natural defender, but only just. He likened him to a Vidic type quality player.

I never understood why Wenger never gave this kid a chance, considering the patience he has shown with dross like denilson, djourou, bendtner, ramsey etc. I think that he would be a great choice as second or third striker. Definitely more so than Park…

He’s not a natural Winger John and he’s not better than most of them you listed, he’s not even proven in this league yet…
There’s is going to have to be alot more major change than that I’m afraid, it’s going to be a long hard summer like this season has been or even many previous.

I’m actually quite looking forward to the EUROs. Not saying England will win, but it will be nice to just watch football again without hating what is going on. It will also be interesting to see how Walcott gets on in a different system.

Agree that Podolski is a good player, I personally feel he will shake things up a bit. Don’t know about him being better than Silva though, different players altogether. I would jump through hoops if we signed a player as good as Silva, he is the type of player we desperately need.

arsenal1886 Gotze reminds quite a bit of Silva, small, fast feet, nimble, good quick passer, likes a crack at goal. If Wenger has some balls he;d be trying to get either Hazard or Gotze, either would be brilliant for us

Cesc.
Bale and Modric are nailed on to leave, that will be about £60+ million to spend, and they will spend every penny of it.

As for Gotze, oh well we can dream. I reckon the Ox will fill that role eventually, his dad Mark said he is more suited to central midfield than the wing and sees this a natural progression.
The OX almost played professional rugby instead of football, Saints would not release him for trials with London Irish.

My mate is an Ajax ST holder and says Vertonghen is ok but nothing really special.
said he looks good in Holland but he doesn’t think he’d be all that in the premier league, which he knows well.
He watches Arsenal and says he’s no loss to us and that Verm is better.
I personally think Verm has been pony this season though.
I reckon my boy Eric is off of his cunt on some sickening weed anyway so ignore this post.

It’s very easy to separate fact from fiction here. Experienced player = big wage which scares arsenal more than a transfer fee. Only experienced players arsenal will buy are those willing to take a pay cut because they’ve made some bad choices (ie arteta, podolski, arshavan, etc). Now m’vill has no need to take a pay cut so he’s out. This isn’t rocket science if you’ve followed arsenal for a long haul. But imagine if we paid that little extra price for experience how many trophies we would have had over the past 6 years (we weren’t far off). Instead the greedy board needed that extra bently and fancy vacations.

Big transfers are a thing of the past. Banks aren’t lending as easily anymore with the down turn so you won’t see the same over inflated prices as before unless it’s City or real, etc to wash money through the club.

AA23 I think it’s because Song looks the part, occasionally threads the ‘glamour’ ball and does have games where he looks legit. However he needs a tough mentor, by all acoounts he’s not really an ‘ego’ and is quite liked at London Colney if players are to be believed. If someone can get hold of him and tell him he needs commitment, dedication and discipline drilled into his game we’ll have a decent player on our hands there.
I think hes one that if we let him go we’d see him turn into a very good midfielder elsewhere. Even IF M’Vila arrives no way should we sell him, I know Gambon and a few others disagree on here. But going somewhere like Stoke you can play Song, M’Vila, Wilshere/Arteta across the middle, looks immediately a more physical line.
As I’ve said, if i had Arsenal’s turnover, Arsenal money at my disposal and I was manager (would love that job by the way Arsenal if you’re reading) I’d go in for Hummels £15-20 Million, Hazard (would have to choose between him and Gotze and right now we need a fast winger with actual skill) £25-30 Million, M’Vila £17 Million, Jaaskaleninen £FREE, Santon/Baines £ Few Million, Hoillet £FREE.
Perhaps try and lower those prices by throwing in players, I could see Lille going for Chamakh and Diaby plus cash for Hazard, much better for them because they’re not exactly a top prospect club to go to.
That’d give you a starting eleven of Schez, Sagna, Hummels, Verm, Santon, Arteta, M’Vila, Wilshere, Hazard, RVP, Podolski….epic team IMO. You got Jaska, Song, Hoilett, Koscielny, Gibbs, Walcott on the bench
But that’s thinking with a nut sack swinging between my legs, not a change purse

Remember that Spurs are a team that Vertonghen would walk into. We already have Koscielny, Vermaelen, and Mertesacker. I’m not saying that’s the world’s best CB corps, but there is no guarantee at all Vertonghen would start most games here. At Spurs, it’s the opposite case.

I firmly believe now that the highest operator in the decision to buy anyone at Arsenal is cost and wages. We won’t pay more than 10-15m. Wenger won’t buy superstars. He buys unknowns or average players and prays they come good.

Well, if you buy on average say 50 such players over the course of 3 or 4 seasons, the laws of probability say that a mere handful will make the cut and even more rare, one player will be a superstar as we’ve seen with Henry, Fabregas and Van Persie to name three.

The question we have to ask ourselves is: does this mean Wenger is a brilliant manager? Well, managers are usually judged against the number of trophies they’ve won. In the same period that Wenger has been in charge, his peers have won a great deal more. That is just fact. Ferguson, Mourinho, Guardiola.

If there were world rankings for club managers, where do you think Wenger would come? He most certainly won’t be first (don’t care what anyone says or what measuring stick they use). He won’t come second and won’t come third.

If we put all factors into the mix, such as club turnover, wages structure, injuries and so on, I don’t think he would be in the top 5. I would rate him something like 9 or 10 and that is probably generous.

Jeff – I think he’s partially senile, or maybe just horrifically stubborn, but Wenger does at least believe in a philosophy of football that I endorse. Does he pursue it to a flaw? Well, I’ll concede, probably. Some of his tactics, for instance, seem pretty daft–as if he’s ignoring common sense in blind pursuit of his ideal.
Another issue is that he has too much control. I think that while he is a good developer of talent, he tends to over-rely on this ability. Or overestimate himself in cases. Perhaps the board is to blame too for the tight-fisted approach to talent acquisition.
So, I’d say he’s got significant flaws, but he plays an awesome brand of football. If he’d just let in more influences to help with his weak spots (say, getting some help with defensive coaching and negotiating signings/contracts), he’d be at the heights of the club football world again.

I hesitate to put a ranking on him. It’s tough to compare managers with so much variation in league quality, club size, budgets, etc. etc. But, I’d probably agree with you anyway that he’s not in the top 5. At least not at the moment. He’s proven he can be great though. Let’s just hope he remembers how to be.

Dan, it is difficult to assess a ranking and as you say the brand of football that we play is easy on the eye. However, the lack of success that should be accompanying such style of play (as we see with Barcelona) is making me think that Wenger is flogging a dead horse.

To get anywhere near the success a club like Barcelona has been having doesn’t just rely on the style of play. It also depends on the quality of players to pull it off and those players at Barcelona didn’t come cheap. For example they aren’t afraid to spend 30 or 40 million on a player if necessary. A herd of wild horses couldn’t make Wenger do that. He does not want anyone to say that success was purchased. He wants total credit for everything all the time. He wants adulation for every blade of grass that grows.

He alone must be responsible, even at the cost of not winning anything. That attitude alone brings him down in the rankings because what it amounts to is a self-imposed limitation which basically finds its way to his huge ego which is saying “look at what I can do without expensive players”.

I firmly believe he holds other managers who buy expensive players in contempt because somehow or rather they are cheating and not playing by his rules. Well of course they’re not because they don’t care how much a player costs as long as they help bring in the trophies. That difference in thinking alone (and it has got worse over the last decade or so) means we will probably never win anything ever again until he and his grand philosophy finally leave the club; sad but inevitable.

Nothing more would make me change my mind if he injects a little flexibility either in the wage structure, transfer fees or even changing the formation we play so as to counter the style of our opponents. But he does none of that. It’s the same old thing over and over again. The team has become a sad bunch of bottlers who cannot seem to get over the line in crunch matches. The players have also become used to this new trophy we have invented (3rd or 4th) and consider that as another successful season.

Okay we now have a magnificent stadium that is the envy of the world. Well done. But what reward has it brought? Where has the extra revenue gone? Everywhere I look, all I can see is the vicious cycle repeating itself. The season starts, we struggle, the main protagonists start to rise to the top and half way through, we’re already out of breath. Then everyone says we should have bought this player or that player that other clubs beat us to and as we drop out of every competition, it dawns on us that we simply do not have the players to win trophies. This cycle has now repeated itself over 8 seasons. What hope is there that the next one isn’t going to be the same or worse?

losing out on Vertonghen to fucking Sp*ds will be something that will tip the scale for me, as he is a player we could seriously do with, yes Eredivisie is not all that, but him being a player of the year there must count for something?

and Wenger will predictably say that he would not sign him as he would kill Djourou by doing this…

Problem with Vertonghen is playing time. He wants it guaranteed and he prefers CB. We cannot guarantee him that in his preferred position, Spurs can because King is passed it.

M’Vila story is very believable because theres definitely something happening there. That is a fact, my friends, not a rumor. The only rumor is that we’ve wrapped up the signing, which we obviously didn’t cause it’d be announced.

A rumor I just saw was that we’re out to hijack United’s move for Kagawa. I’d love him, but how believable is it? Wilshere, Diaby, Arteta, Song, Ramsey, M’Vila,Kagawa. So thats a no go, but I’d love to get rid of Ramsey to make room.

Patterns of failure repeat themselves. It is only be by virtue of outrageous fortune that we are still 3rd and part of that fortune isn’t to do with how lucky we have been in our games but how badly those below us have played. Those above us have 19 points over us. 19 POINTS! Since when has that happened before?

I’ve been a reader of Le Grove for a long time but I rarely comment and rarely read any more as many of the posts and the comments are so anti-Arsenal it is unreal. It’s like so many of these people actually want Arsenal to fail so they can feel vindicated. I admit to being a bit more positive than many Gooners and I admit to being a lot more ambivalent than many other Gooners when it comes to Arsenal’s lack of success because I am quite pragmatic when it comes to how easy it is to compete.

We are in a bad situation financially insofar as our money is tied up in all the wrong places so we aren’t able to compete with big wages and when we can compete we decide to tie up average players on big contracts but I don’t think that getting out of that situation is as easy as many think.

I actually write my own blog and someone pointed to this article as a means to support their argument and I honestly found it laughable. I mean how can you assume what we can sell our players for? We don’t know the situation behind that player staying or going. Value and worth are different things. £6m for Bendtner might seem like good value for a buying club from an Arsenal fans point of view but that may not fit in with Bendtners worth to us. If we sell do we need to replace him (only Wenger can answer that) and if we do can we buy a replacement for £6m? Park for example may seem like really bad value but he is potentially worth a lot to Arsenal as he is very marketable in Asia. It is cynical to think that he was bought for commercial reasons but I honestly believe he was.

Glad you like my style, I’m sure you’d like my blog. Are you on Twitter?

Pedro – sorry we both started getting personal but you took criticism and turned it into a personal argument. I don’t really think you are an idiot, just highly misinformed about the ease of selling a player.